Reformations: Indonesian Literature in Translation

Indonesian’s stories may not be well known, but Indonesian writers are capturing them. Slowly, the rest of the world is starting to pay attention. This year Indonesia is the guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the first time a Southeast Asian nation has been chosen to showcase its culture at the largest and most important publishing event in the world. Indonesia’s slogan for this event, “17,000 Islands of Imagination,” evokes the commonplace of Indonesia as “an imagined nation,” and perhaps indicates that even the national organizing committee doesn’t know what keeps this country together. Inspired by Frankfurt, with support from the Lontar Foundation and the New York Southeast Asia Network (NYSEAN), the Asian American Writers’ Workshop decided it was a perfect occasion to introduce a series on Indonesian literature in The Margins.

Our occasional series, spread out over the next six months, is designed to introduce some of Indonesia’s most gifted writers and give readers a flavor of an expansive literary tradition that weaves together cultures, histories, religions, languages, and myths.

Work(s) originally published in English

WritersDirectory

At a Glance

Consists of about 360 writers, 379 books from 118 publishers, 299 contributing authors, 393 (148+97+148) articles published in 144 media, 37 works in translation, and 51 useful resources that we feel are particularly worth noting.

Devoted to showcasing Indonesian writers and/or book authors, along with their publications, journals, and other literary resources in English. Our main feature, the writers directory, provides a way for writers to find one another, but more importantly the resources provided makes it easy for event hosts,—especially for international event hosts—, literary organizers, arts administrators, librarians, booksellers, and readers to get in touch with writers.

You can read more about us, here. This initial public release is just the beginning. Please let us know if you have links to share. And please do send your information.